Me and my school photo: Alastair Stewart

ITN reporter and newsreader Alastair Stewart, 56, lives in Hampshire with his wife, Sally, and their children, Freddie, 15, and Oscar, 11. They also have two older children, Alex, 26, and Clemmie, 24. He says:

This is a picture of the gang of five. Myself, aged 17, and my four closest friends shortly before we left St Augustine's Abbey School in Ramsgate, Kent, where I boarded from the age of 11.

My first school, when my parents lived in Scotland, was Madras College, in St Andrews. My fondest memory of the place was the taste of the cold, creamy milk from the third-of-a-pint bottle, which we were given with a digestive biscuit.

This is still one of my favourite taste combinations. I mentioned this to chef Heston Blumenthal when we were last at his restaurant, The Fat Duck. He said he would try to reproduce it as an ice-cream.

Next I went to a Catholic prep school, Salesian College, in Farnborough, Hampshire. My father was in the RAF, which was why I was sent to boarding school. Salesian College was all right. I think I probably just endured it. It was that in-between age, when you're not young enough to get away with everything and not old enough to really understand what you can get out of school.

Alistair aged 17 with his four closest friends shortly before he left St Augustine's Abbey School in Ramsgate, where he boarded from the age of 11.

I do have happy memories of the local tuck shop – especially a pyramid-shaped fruit lolly called a Jubbly – and the bakery next door. On a Saturday morning I would buy half a loaf just out of the oven and eat the warm, moist dough from the middle.

My big brother, Iain, was at the school as well. My father then decided it was probably wise to separate us, so while Iain stayed on, I was sent to St Augustine's – and I have fantastically happy memories of that school.

Being by the sea we had an active sailing club, and I learnt to sail dinghies. When I was 15 there was one incredibly dramatic and frightening moment in quite rough seaswhen my boat capsized. I was trapped underneath and got tangled in the rigging. I had to be winched to safety by an RAF helicopter.

I was briefly a hero, and then in trouble for nearly losing the school boat. I still go sailing on holiday in little skiffs with my sons. Now I find it wonderfully exciting if theboat turns over, with the sound of the wind and the crashing waves.

The other thing I adored was that the school allowed me to go horse riding at a nearby stables. It was run by an ex-cavalry chappy known as The Captain, who taught us to ride. That became a really important part of my life because my wife Sally and I courted while riding together in the New Forest.

St Augustine's was a Catholic boarding school and had an intriguing mixture of teachers – half were monks, the rest laymen. Three were particularly inspirational.

Brother Aelred, my form master when I was in the fourth and fifth years, introduced me to the writers George Orwell, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck. He really challenged us intellectually, and in the end challenged himself intellectually: he resigned from the priesthood and eventually became a headmaster in Surrey.

I was taught English by Brother Stephen, who had a great love for the writing of E.M. Forster – a passion he passed on to me. There was another great guy, Robin Edwards, who taught me history.

So, I learnt a lot from two monks and a layman, and they made boarding school bearable. But by the age of 17, I and my four best friends – Angelo Lucini, Steve Scorer, Rick Jones and Charlie Von Baumann – were getting frustrated with the monastic, single-sex school. I remember there was a language school in Ramsgate that used to attract rather beautiful French and Swiss girls. We felt duty-bound to help them, which caused one or two run-ins with the school authorities.

We were also frustrated because, academically, we were way ahead of pupils at other schools and so were ready for university before our time. We wanted to get on with the next chapter in our lives.

I was desperate to do economics at King's College, Cambridge, because that's where the brilliant economist John Maynard Keynes wrote his General Theory Of Employment, Interest and Money. But Cambridge rejected me. They wrote to my housemaster, saying, 'He lacks academic maturity.'

What they meant, of course, was that I was bright enough to do it, but needed to grow up. On the other hand, to get into Bristol University I needed two Bs and a C. I thought, 'Anyone can do that!' So I gave Cambridge an academic twofingered salute and went to Bristol to read politics and economics.

At school I hadn't been remotely interested in politics. Of course, we discussed the Vietnam War, and decided the Cubans and Russians were much more compassionate in their attitude. But it was only when

I went to Bristol that I discovered politics seriously and got heavily involved in the students' union. I determined quite quickly that my future lay in politics, via the law. I was going to be a barrister, an MP and then Chancellor of the Exchequer. I was very clear about that.

Also, I always thought I would be Chancellor of the Exchequer, with Charles Clarke – who I worked with at the National Union of Students after leaving university – as Prime Minister. Charles, who become Home Secretary under Tony Blair, and I were, and still are, very close. He was president of the NUS and I was his deputy, and I always deferred to him, so I saw him as the one to take the top job.

Who knows what might have happened if I'd stuck to my first plan? Instead, an appearance as a guest on ITV as the deputy president of the NUS led to a job offer. Initially I rejected it. Then I changed my mind. I've never looked back.